He is now at his last tournament of the year, his own tournament in effect, the Target World Challenge which starts today at Sherwood Country Club in the coastal hills some 40 miles west of downtown Los Angeles. It has a first prize of £500,000 and a field of 16, including defending champion Luke Donald, Colin Montgomerie and Geoff Ogilvy.

Tiger will go skiing next week, put away his clubs and get ready for the holidays and for his 31st birthday on Dec 20.

He will contemplate whether to enter the 2007 PGA Tour opener, the Mercedes Championships in Hawaii during the first week in January. And he will reflect on the agony and ecstasy of a year which, with eight wins including two majors, he said was even better than 2000, when he won nine times, three of those majors.

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"No doubt about it, as far as hitting the ball," Woods said. "But I certainly didn't putt as well as I did in 2000."

This will be a different Christmas for Tiger. A more relaxed Christmas. A year ago, he comforted the ailing Earl Woods, who eventually was to die of cancer in May. A year ago Tiger survived on hope as Earl, in his Orange County home, amazingly survived day after day.

"I didn't even know it was Christmas," Woods said of 2005. "All the days just blended together because dad was really struggling at the time. I was up there non-stop, trying to be with dad. The last couple of years have not been a whole lot of fun."

Tiger has grown, matured. He knows himself. We know him. There is a respect from both sides, a smoothing of rough edges, although Woods, chuckling, agrees that those bolts of anger, the obscenities aimed at himself after a poor shot, arise now and then because of his competitive nature.

He has prepared himself for his golf, prepared himself to be the best ever. He judges himself on progress. "Am I a better golfer right now than I was at the beginning of the year?" Woods asked rhetorically. "If the answer is yes, it's a successful year, and if I did that for the rest of my career, it would be a great career." And how many years has the answer been 'Yes' since he turned pro in the summer of 1996? "Every."

The Target field has numerous Europeans and Britons, and Woods was asked why they have become so popular in America.

"I think it's just their spirit and how they live life," he said. "It's so different than how we are here. There's a cultural difference, and a lot of Americans, the fans, tend to gravitate towards them because they do enjoy life."